trees

Late today, we were forwarded a copy of issued by a U.S. District Court in California denying the Army Corps of Engineers motion to dismiss a case over levee vegetation in Sacramento. The Court rejected each of the Corps of Engineers arguments to dismiss the case outright. Indeed, the order constitutes a complete rejection of [...]

This is breaking news, and we are still absorbing the just-received document, but today the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers answered the complaint we filed in federal court to protect the dike road trees. The Corps of Engineers' Answer to Plaintiff's Complaint (pdf) is a detailed and formalistic response which will be used primarily to frame [...]

We just received the lamest of lame responses from the U.S. Army in response to our petitions. Taking cover behind "pending litigation," U.S. Army Assistant Secretary for Civil Works Jo-Ellen Darcy barely acknowledges our community's outpouring of support for the dike road trees with a hugely disappointing "I cannot comment further at this time" letter. [...]

Taking a closer look at the impacts of the Corps of Engineers mandate to remove trees from the Rosenberry Drive dike, a local engineering firm was engaged by North Idaho College to review options for the City of Coeur d'Alene. In the review, the firm estimated that the costs of removing trees and roots, and [...]

Today, Kootenai Environmental Alliance filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers mandate to remove the trees along the Rosenberry Drive (“The Dike Road”) in Coeur d'Alene. The lawsuit alleges that the Corps failed to perform an adequate environmental analysis, and that the Corps is attempting to enforce a memorandum [...]

With the generous assistance of our local Congressman, the dike road tree petitions are on their way to Washington DC. This morning, Adrienne and I delivered the stack of signatures to Rep. Raul Labrador’s Coeur d'Alene office. The Congerssman’s staff says they will take it from here. Our petition is directed at Hon. Jo-Ellen Darcy, [...]

KEA obtained a press release announcing that California's Department of Fish and Game will be joining a lawsuit brought by environmental groups fighting the Corps of Engineers' policy requiring vegetation removal from levees. The lawsuit alleges that the Corps failed to perform a proper NEPA analysis on the levee vegetation policy and that the policy [...]

As Baltimore Mayor Thomas D'Alesandro III notoriously said of being Mayor, "You come in in the morning and they bring you a big plate of [crap] to eat. So you grit your teeth and just when you get finished ... they're at the door with a bigger plate of [crap]." Coeur d'Alene is decidedly not [...]

We got the phone call the other day and an email confirmation yesterday, and we’re pleased to say that KEA will be represented on the City of Coeur d'Alene’s new ad hoc committee to deal with the dike road trees. An initial meeting will be scheduled for mid-November. Recall that a Corps of Engineers inspection [...]

After more than 1700 online signatures, and about the same number of signatures on paper, the most frequent hesitation to our Save the Dike Road Trees petition has been of the “I don’t live in Coeur d'Alene” variety. Our response is: go ahead and sign. We want all the signatures we can get, of course, [...]